At the time of economic slowdown leading to job crunch, the railways has presented a bonanza --- 1.52 lakh new jobs in a year.

Railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal announced that 1.52 lakh vacancies would be filled up in the coming election year. The next general election is slated for April-May 2014.

The process for the recruitment has already started. The railways for the first time conducted nation-wide railway recruitment examination across 60 cities for 47,000 posts meant for weaker sections of the society.

And, the response was overwhelming --- 2.2 crore applications --- considering that not many Central government jobs are in the offing.

Jobs in government and private sector have been slow and the railways could be an opportunity for job-seekers.

To create workforce needed for fast changing railways, the ministry would also provide skill training to youth by becoming part of the National Skill Development initiative.

Bansal said skill training would be imparted to youth in 25 locations which include Agartala, Chandigarh, Dehradun, Imphal, Koraput, Mangalore, Nagpur, Shimla, Sirsa and Tiruchchirappalli.

The ministry will also set up multi-disciplinary training institute at Nagpur for imparting training in rail related electronics technologies and a financial training institute for railway officials at Secundarabad in Andhra Pradesh.

In addition to skill upgradation, the minister also focused on railway related research. The ministry would award five fellowships to undertake research on Indian Railways related issues at M.Phil & Ph.D levels in Central Universities and would also set up a chair at The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) to promote railway related green research.

The minister also announced that some of the railway related activities would be taken by under the government’s Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme aimed at providing minimum 100 days of work to rural Indians.